Thursday, March 20, 2014

GHAST"...the
ghasts, those repulsive beings which die in the light, and
which live in the vaults of Zin and leap on long hind legs
like kangaroos.After
a moment something about the size of a small horse hopped
out into the grey twilight, and Carter turned sick at the aspect
of that scabrous and unwholesome beast, whose face is so curiously
human despite the absence of a nose, a forehead,

and other
important particulars."H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

DRYAD"Well
did I come to know the presiding dryads of those trees, and often have I
watched their wild dances in the struggling beams of a waning moon—but
of these things I must not now speak. I will tell only of the lone tomb
in the darkest of the hillside thickets; the deserted tomb of the Hydes,
an old and exalted family whose last direct descendant had been laid
within its black recesses many decades before my birth."H.P. Lovecraft, The Tomb

"This (Dryad) was the name of a group of nymphs in the classical mythology of Greece and Rome. The Dryad's name is derived from the Greek Drys, which means oak. These nymphs were the guardian spirits of trees, groves, and woods, and would punish anymortals offering harm."

"In the classical mythology of Greece and Rome, this (Hamadryad)
is the name of nymphs of the trees who inhabited and were part of the
trees they protected. They are described as being beautiful females to
the waist, and the lower parts of their bodies are the trunk of the
tree and its roots,"Carol Rose, Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

SILENT STRUTTER"In
an instant every moving entity was electrified; and forming at once
into a ceremonial procession, the nightmare horde slithered away in
quest of the sound—goat, satyr, and aegipan, incubus, succuba, and lemur, twisted toad and shapeless elemental, dog-faced howler and silent strutter in darkness—all led by the abominable naked phosphorescent thing
that had squatted on the carved golden throne, and that now strode
insolently bearing in its arms the glassy-eyed corpse of the corpulent
old man."H.P. Lovecraft, The Horror At Red Hook

Monday, March 17, 2014

"I was much less disturbed by the vaguer tales of wails and howlings in the
barren, windswept valley beneath the limestone cliff; of the graveyard stenches after the spring
rains; of the floundering, squealing white thing on which Sir John Clave’s horse had trod
one night in a lonely field;"

Friday, March 14, 2014

Tomorrow, Saturday March 15th I'll have a piece in a Houdini themed show at Brooklyn's Gristle Tattoo. The show marks the anniversary of his controversial Mirror Escape, and artists were encouraged to make pieces inspired by this trick or the man himself. As should be obvious if you follow this blog, I pounced on the opportunity to make a piece influenced by one of my favorite stories; Under the Pyramids (aka Imprisoned With the Pharaohs)! Here's what I did (expect this in poster form with Collection II):

The show was curated by Samantha Levin and here's her write up about it:

On
March 17, 1904, the American icon, Harry Houdini, accepted a challenge
from London’s Daily Illustrated Mirror to attempt an escape from a
special set of handcuffs that had taken five years to make and that “no
mortal man could pick.” From within his “ghost house,” that sat on the
stage, Houdini spent an hour attempting to escape these cuffs, stepping
out now and again, once to remove his coat, other times to clear his
mind. At one point during the event, he stepped out to greet his loving
wife who had come onto the stage to give him an encouraging kiss. Long
after his wife’s appearance on stage, Houdini emerged free from the
cuffs, and cried in front of his audience, exclaiming that this had been
his most difficult challenge to date. Although it had taken him awhile
to emerge uncuffed after his wife’s kiss, the rumor spread that she had
smuggled him the key in her mouth.

The rumor about the key has
never been proven. The item was too large to have fit in the lady’s
mouth, so it’s not likely to be true, yet the strength of the
romanticism surrounding such a story has allowed it to endure. Houdini’s
entire career revolved around such dramatic mysteries, his charismatic
ability to engage his audience and, of course, to escape the inescapable
and endure the unendurable.

Houdini was a superman of his
time; a man who accomplished the impossible in front of the wide eyes of
the immigrants, poor and underdogs with whom he felt akin. His stunts
were astounding in and of themselves - even his doubters couldn’t look
away from him - yet his entire career and persona were metaphorical,
symbolizing “...freedom to those seeking release from religious and
political oppression,” offering a way of escape to all who felt trapped
in an unfair life.

The Elusive Key is a group exhibition of
artworks that celebrate the mystique and hope that surrounded Houdini
everywhere during his life, and 88 years after his death. Scheduled to
take place around the 110th anniversary of the Mirror handcuff escape,
this show is an exhibition of magic, mystique and wonder that points
towards the belief that anything can happen.

THE WAILING WRITHER (NYARLATHOTEP)"Najar's smoking carcass falls and
out of it pours the twitching, whirling blackness that is the Wailing
Writher, its numerous mouths snapping and screaming."

"Esther
Marsh melts into a steaming pool of primal fluids and is horribly
absorbed by the towering column of wriggling worms and shrieking mouths
that is the Writher."

"The Wailing Writher manifests itself as a
towering, swirling black mass of dripping, squirming tendrils and
drooling, shrieking mouths. Millions of rope-like tendrils constantly
wriggle and squirm, giving the avatar the appearance of a great column
of black worms. The Wailing Writher is mentioned in some very obscure
Hindu myths, although it has no known cult among humans."Kevin A. Ross, Escape From Innsmouth

Thursday, March 13, 2014

SHUGORAN (NYARLATHOTEP)"The model next to it wears a green silk ceremonial robe from Negri Sembilan, most rugged of the Malayan provinces. Note central motif of native man blowing ceremonial horn, and the graceful curve of his instrument; the figure is believed to be a representation of "Death's Herald", possibly warning villagers of approaching calamity. Gift of an anonymous donor, the robe is probably Tcho-tcho in origin and dates from the early 19th century."

"INT: This Malay youth has sketched a picture of a demon he calls Shoo Goron. (To Boy) I wonder if you can tell me something about the instrument he's blowing out of. It looks like the Jewish Shofar, or ram's horn. (Again to Boy) That's all right. No need to be frightened.BOY: No horn. Is no horn. (Weeps) Is him....Despite the richness and variety of their folklore, however, they have nothing akin to the Malay shugoran, a kind of bogey-man used to frighten naughty children. The traveller hears many conflicting descriptions of it, some bordering on the obscene. (Oran, of course, is Malay for 'man', while shug, which here connotes 'sniffing' or 'questing', means literally, 'elephant's trunk'.) I well recall the hide which hung over the bar at the Traders' Club in Singapore, and which, according to tradition, represented the infant of this fabulous creature; its wings were black. Shortly after the War a regimental surgeon was passing through on his way back to Gibraltar and , after dude examination, pronounced it the dried-out skin of a rather large catfish. He was never asked back.""My sister only reinforced the mood when, sending me a rather salacious story she'd found in the Enquirer-about the 'thing like a vacuum cleaner' that snaked through a Swedish sailero's porthole and 'made his face all purple'."Shortly before midnigh Mrs. Florence Cavenaugh, a housewife living at 7 Alyssum Terrace, Cutter's Grove, was about to close the curtains in her front room when she saw, peering through the window at her, what she described as 'a large man wearing a gas mask or scuba outfit."

"Local police favor the 'scuba' theory, since near the window they've discovered footprints that may have been made by a heavy man in swim fins."T.E.D. Klein, Black Man With a Horn

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

THE MASKED MESSENGER (NYARLATHOTEP)"The woman was no longer
beautiful. Her skin ran with rivulets of toxic acid, dissolving her
robes and flaying her flesh. but it was not muscle and blood that was
concealed behind her now-graying, bubbling skin; hers was an inner flesh
of worms and tentacular sinews tainted with the corruption of ages.
From Nowhere she wore a long curved mask of polished bronze, with eye
slits the color of oily pools. When the woman laughed she did so with
more wickedness that found in all the heathens of this world,

and I at
last understood what real evil was.David Conyers, The Faceless Watchers

"It’s an interesting book Mr. Peel. Five hundred fables, most of them
concerning a dark god called the Masked Messenger, Nyarlathotep, and how
she offers power and salvation to those who ask for it. There is, of
course, always a price."

"In his small, dull room, he could make out that one of her eyes was
covered with a white film. She was properly and modestly veiled, even
though it was inappropriate for her to be in the company of a strange
man unescorted."

"Acid perspired from her pores,
dissolving the fabric of her robes and the car seat, but never enough to
completely erode either. She smelt like drain cleaner.

"Outside the hot wind gathered, swirled her robe about her slender form
as if it were a living entity. She continued to drip acid, an endless
supply carving canals in her flesh. Where the acid fell upon the sand,
glass formed."

Now the Masked Messenger waited for him. She wore an elongated mask of
bronze, with two dark eye-slits and no mouth piece"David Conyers & John Goodrich, The Masked Messenger

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

THE SKINLESS ONE (NYARLATHOTEP)"In the 11th century, the simulacrum
came into the possession of Sedefkar, a gazi Turkman who had fallen from
Islam and turned against his amir. Protected behind the impregnable
walls of Constantinople, this evil apostate accrued great wealth. One
night he caught a thief in his treasure room, and had the man flayed to
death on the spot, that the thief might die in sight of the gold he
desired. The unblinking gaze of the statue watched the torture, and that
night Sedefkar was visited by the statue's maker,

The Skinless One, an
avatar of Nyarlathotep."

"An aspect of Nyarlathotep, it usually
appears as a muscular eight-foot-tall human without skin, and sometimes a
third eye in the center of the forehead."

Monday, March 10, 2014

SET (NYARLATHOTEP)"Unknown to Malachi Kloss and many others. Set is one of the many
forms of Nyarlathotep, who, in this form, has been worshipped for
thousands of years."

"Set appears as a 20 foot tall, muscular man
with the head of a black dog or jackal. He wears a black tunic and
sandals, while the jewelry he wears is all of onyx."Scott David Aniolowski, The Sundial Of Amen-Tet

"Set was represented by the so-called Typhonian animal, or wore its head on human shoulders. This strange animal with a long curving snout, square upstanding ears and upright tufted tail has not been identified."Veronica Ions, Egyptian Mythology

Friday, March 7, 2014

"No use, either, to point out the even more startlingly
similar belief of the Nepalese hill tribes in the dreaded Mi-Go or “Abominable
Snow-Men” who lurk hideously amidst the ice and rock pinnacles of the Himalayan summits."H.P. Lovecraft, The Whisperer In Darkness

"Yetis are not white, except in myth, mostly Western myth.
Traditionally, in Nepal, Sikkim, and Tibet, close up sightings of Yeti
describe their color as the basic primate blacks to brownish reds. It
seems that as soon as the mistranslation to “Abominable Snowman”
occurred in the West, the notion has been that these cryptids are white.
It is an unfortunate mistake that is still being made with Yeti toys
and souvenirs. And art."

"Perhaps
the most widely celebrated of the elusive wilderness monsters is the
so-called Abominable Snowman-or as Nepal's mountain-dwelling Sherpas say, Ye-teh or Teti-whos tracks have been often discovered in the frigid lands of perpetual snow in the Himalayan regions of India, Nepal, and Tibet."

"In 1889, Waddell found what he took to be large footprints in the snow on a high peak northeast of Sikkim."

"Described as having pointed heads, long arms hanging below the knees and covered in reddish hair, the Yeti would seem to be a smaller version of North America's Bigfoot, though most investigators insist that the two creatures are entirely different."Mysteries Of the Unknown, Mysterious Creatures

Thursday, March 6, 2014

GNOPH-KEH"A
small bulge in the canvas far to the right suggested the sharp horn of
Gnoph-keh, the hairy myth-thing of the Greenland ice, that walked
sometimes on two legs, sometimes on four, and sometimes on six."H.P. Lovecraft & Hazel Heald, The Horror In the Museum

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

"These creatures, I said to myself,
were to the men of the nameless city what the she-wolf was to Rome, or some totem-beast is to
a tribe of Indians."

H.P. Lovecraft, The Nameless City

"The word (totem) is from the Algonquian and signified originally a brother-sister blood relationship. As used by anthropologists, it may denote any one or all of a number of related concepts and associated customs stemming from the nuclear idea of a blood covenant between the human and the animal species. Primarily, the anthropological term denotes (1) a mythological identification of the ancestor of a given human family, clan or tribe with the ancestor of some local animal species; but it has also been used to signify either (2) the identification of some particular animal with the guardianship or heraldic sign of some social group or class or (3) the recognition of some particular animal as the guardian, servant, or alter ego of an individual-which is more properly known as nagualism, from the Nahuatl noun nahualli ("sorcerer").Joseph Campbell, Historical Atlas Of World Mythology

Monday, March 3, 2014

"Once more I ventured within those brooding ruins that swelled beneath the sand like an ogre
under a coverlet, and again dug vainly for relics of the forgotten race."

H.P. Lovecraft,The Nameless City

"This is a name given in folklore to a particular class of giant. In general an ogre is a gigantic humanoid male of verly little intellect, enormously strong bulk, cannibal tendencies, and easily outwitted by a clever human."